An Audacious Wish List for 2021

Dear Santa,

Forgive the graphic term, but 2020 pretty much sucked.

I’m not just talking about COVID with its shutdowns, lockdowns, and snotty masks — and that assumes you didn’t have to go on a ventilator.

 We also had a presidential campaign that should embarrass anyone—Were those two the best that America had to offer?

Then there was the racial roiling: If you are a liberal, you called it “unrest,” “protests” or “activism.”  If you aren’t liberal, you called it, “rioting,” “looting” and “burning down cities.” 

Plus, if you lived in the “land of dreams,” California, following years of drought and water restrictions, 2020 treated you to wildfires that turned even a health nut into a chain smoker.

Oh for a better 2021. Regression to the mean promises that, but Santa, I want to be much greedier:

 I want a vaccine that doesn’t knock people out for a day, which understandably makes them hesitate to come out for Round 2. Better still Santa, give me a one-dose vaccine, like the Johnson & Johnson one that’s in Phase III trials. Oh, and I want my vaccine to have no side effects, and oh, one that confers lifetime immunity.

And Santa, the zillions spent on a COVID vaccine should offer lessons for creating a vaccine against other scourges. Could you thus give our COVID nightmare the dreamy side effect of birthing a vaccine for AIDS, even cancer?

 And while I’m thinking ginormous:

Santa, I want an economy that comes back enough to restore jobs but one that isn’t so robust that it encourages the over-materialistic lifestyle that cheapens people’s existence. Too many people focus on the Wise Men’s gift of gold, far fewer people on the frankincense and myrrh.

Santa, my next wish is very personal to me. I waste so much time every year keeping tax records and preparing my income tax returns. We need a tax system that replaces all that, not to mention the tax-avoidance shenanigans — Cayman Islands? What we need is a value-added tax. Santa, in case you’re not up on taxation systems, a VAT is pretty much like a sales tax paid by consumers and manufacturers so it adds up to the same amount that the income tax yields. No tax return, no cheating, well, less cheating.

Santa, we also really need an election system that doesn’t require candidates to double-talk and press tawdry flesh for four years. No surprise, that deters the best people from running. Instead, elections should be just two weeks long, publicly funded, with a true debate — no biased moderators — and if one candidate rudely dominates (a particular presidential candidate rushes to mind), it’s there for all to see. The campaign would also include candidates’ voting record and platforms compiled by, say, Consumer Reports. 

And while we’re reinventing systems, education is ripe for that. The EduBlob — district, county, regional, state, and federal bureaucracies — each mandate a Manhattan phonebook of rules and regulations, some of which contradict each other. That means that a fortune in our tax dollars and educator efforts are wrested from where it matters — the classroom.

Speaking of the classroom, at the high school level at least, classroom lessons should be presented online by the world’s most transformative instructors, so that all students, from Harlem to Hollywood, can get the best. A live teacher would be in the classroom to answer questions, lead discussions and interactive activities, explain homework, and keep kids from dancing on their desk. I never danced on my desk but I think of how much time I spent chained to my school desk bored or befuddled. Santa, please save the next generation from that!

Dear reader, you may make fun of me, calling my wish list no more realistic than is Santa Claus, but seriously, we all need to dream, to aspire, to believe in something more hopeful than what we’ve experienced in 2020. Here’s to a Santa-Claus 2021.

I read this aloud on YouTube.